Weekend Recap

Happy Monday!!!

This weekend was super productive. On Saturday, Dash woke me up early so I decided to get a head start on running errands. I hit the car wash to use a GroupOn that was about to expire....my car is now shiny and clean, inside and out. Next it was off to PetsMart for some dog food. I ended up buying more than I should have, but the purple bone with the word "WOOF" written in pink was so cute and cheap. I also decided to buy some dental care stuff. Some fizzy tabs that you add to your pets' water dish and it helps fight off bacteria and plaque. Yay for healthy pet teeth.

Michaels was next to PetsMart, so I made an un-necessary stop there (I'm sure glad that one of my 2012 goals was to get out of debt). I bought some things for Jana's baby shower because March will be here before I know it.

Then I dropped off my laptop at Best Buy so the Geek Squad could clean it up and make it run faster. I also bought anti-virus and upgraded my Microsoft Office Suite to 2010. Thanks Crosby-Volmer.



Target was my last stop. I bought some things to clean the house. And then I was exhausted and decided that making lunch was too much work, so I swung by Coolgreens on my way home. Mmmmm, greek wrap.

Saturday afternoon I decided it was time to tackle one of the movies on my "must see" list. It's mostly old classics that people always reference, but I've never seen. At the top of the list, Gone With The Wind. Four hours later, I'm glad I saw it, but it was not one of my favorites. I was surprised at the story line! Not what I had imagined at all.

Later that night, Ryan ordered in a pizza. He did this online, and an hour later when I wondered out loud where our pizza was, I had him call Dominoes to check. "Oh, um sir....you checked the carryout option when you ordered. Your pizza has been sitting here for 45 minutes." Lovely. We told them to go ahead and deliver it, and then we enjoyed our lukewarm 1/2 Hawaiian and 1/2 supreme pizza.

Sunday, I attacked the house with a fury. I deep cleaned everything. Ryan also changed out the fridge water filter and the airvents. There is something so satisfying about waking up on a Monday to a super clean house. :) Sunday night I met up with Katy Jo at Hideaway for a mock interview. She is trying to land a job, and needed some practice.



Yes, I realize that my whole weekend consisted of eating out. But today marks the beginning of the 3 month bootcamp program. We are weighing in tonight, and then I'm going to get serious.

So that was my weekend. Thrilling, I know!

Stuck in a Rut

Confession. I haven't been very productive at my job for a long time.

I really try to focus, but I'm just bored with what I'm doing, and would rather be playing with Dash, cleaning the house, checking the mailbox....it's a problem. I don't want to lose my job because I absolutely LOVE not having to get ready every day, I save so much time and money on clothes and gas, etc. But I'm stuck in a rut.

TV Cameo

I finished The Night Circus in just two days. I loved it! The ending could have been better, but I was ecstatic to find one of those books that I had a hard time putting down. Those are too few and far between.

Yesterday, I had the day off. Ashlie and I decided to go run some errands together. We had lunch at the new Smash Burger by my house - living it up foodwise right now, because Monday is the beginning of "The 2012 Revolution."



Speaking of that, I was on TV last night. Deeda at Fox did a story about my boot camp paying people to lose weight. I gave her the idea over FB, because she was looking for a story last week and it didn't end up working out until yesterday. I still get a huge kick out of being on TV, I always will. I think Ashlie was a little embarrassed, but she was a good sport. They filmed us working out after our interviews. Maybe they'll do a follow up story in 3 months when it's over. I can not fail now!

"I've never heard of someone paying people to lose weight."


"I get lighter, my wallet gets heavier."


Tonight, Ryan and I are going to attempt my secret shop a second time since we totally FAILED on Sunday. The hostess seated us in the bar area, and by the time I realized it, it was too late to move (I am only reimbursed for shopping the main dining area, since I have to shop the bar in a separate section). Oh, well. Two yummy dinners this week - since we had to pay out of pocket on Sunday, I think of it as getting 50% off both times, haha.

A New Year

No time like the present to start on my 2012 "goals." Heehee!

NYE ended up being pretty fun, despite the fact that it's my least favorite holiday because it's over-hyped and we usually don't do anything that spectacular.

I met up with Rachel yesterday afternoon to see NYE at the movies. It made me that much more unimpressed with my plans for the evening, because they did not involve the NYC ball drop, secret romance, concerts, sparkly dresses, or any of the glamorous hoopla that we watched unfold on the big screen.

After the movie, I headed to Target to pick up a bunch of mixers for our cocktails and "mocktails" (for Jana). When I got home, I had a meltdown because I didn't like any of my outfits and had nothing to wear. I settled on the same outfit I wore to all of the Christmas parties - a silvery grey sequin tank top with a light purple long-sleeved shirt with lace and sparkle. Covers up my fat arms. I can not WAIT to start boot camp again tomororw. Then Josh and Jana brought their dog over and left her here while we went to dinner at Upper Crust. There was a 45 minute wait, but Jeff saw me and bumped us to the front of the wait. Sweet! He also gave my an employee discount. So nice.

After dinner, we headed over to Patrick and Mallory's house for a few hours of Catch Phrase and "The Blue Drink" that Mallory invented that I must have had 5 gallons of. Blue Mountain Dew and blue vodka. I mixed up a bunch of yummy non-alcoholic drinks for Jana. A favorite of mine consisted of sparkling white grape juice, sprite, sparklin soda water and strawberry pop rocks. I threw some pop rocks into Josh's drink and they exploded into his eye. Kind of similar to an incident that occured with a champagne bottle the night before, which I have yet to recap. I digress. The house was cute, they blew up a ton of silver and white balloons that were all over the floor and Mal had silver glitter covered popcorn. I knew most of her friends, everyone got along and had a great time.

We headed back to our house about an hour before midnight. Jana had indigestion, we wanted to beat the drunks on the road, the dogs had been crated for 5 hours and I think they just wanted to get away from the large group and have it be a bit more intimate. We had champagne with raspberries and a quiet countdown with a New Years Eve kiss with my sweetie. We were talking about it, and this is the 4th year in a row we have spent NYE with Josh and Jana. I love them.





This morning I slept in until noon! And have been lazily reading "The Night Circus" all day. Pretty perfect. I had better hop in the shower, we are going to a secret shop at Hefner Grill tonight :)

So long, 2011!

Just a day and a half left of 2011. I don't have many feelings about it. This year was relatively slow and a lot more boring than previous years.

Not to say there weren't some highlights. Celebrating our one year wedding anniversary. The vacations I took to BC, Vegas, Duluth and Minot. Getting our first puppy in May. Transitioning from an office to permanently working from home.

But I'm looking forward to 2012. Mostly I just like the idea of a fresh start. I don't do New Year Resolutions, too much pressure. However, I do have some "goals."

I am going to try to pay off my credit card debt, blog more often, walk the dog (at least once a week), scrapbook our wedding, eat healthier, lose some weight, and aquire some art to hang on our walls. All pretty reasonable, right? I also want to try to live in the moment and enjoy my life as it's happening right now. I am so bad about wishing my life away when I'm bored or looking forward to an upcoming event or trip. It seems like I've been like that my whole life. "I can't wait to graduate and go to college." Then, "I can't wait to graduate from college and get a real job." "I can't wait to get married." "I can't wait to buy a house." I'm living the best years of my life right now, so I really want to focus on making the now my reality and enjoying the little things.

That said.....I can't WAIT for our family cruise to Alaska in June! Hahaha. I think Ryan and I are going to fly out to Seattle a few days early so we can explore, and maybe even rent a car for a day and head over to Vancouver as well. We got upgraded to balcony suites, and it is going to be so cool eating breakfast outside, watching the glaciers and the mountains as we float by.

I also want to plan something awesome for Ryan's 30th birthday in September, as well as my dad's 50th birthday in December. Lots of milestones and fun things to look forward to!

So, cheers to 2012. I think it's going to be a great year!

Thoughtful Gesture

I have a nightmare client....and had been working particularly hard on this account in July because we had a presentation to give in Memphis in front of all of the key executives.

Ryan and I had a garage sale the day of Mallory's bachelorette party.....we had it at the old house so we could get rid of everything that we didn't want to bring to the new house. We sold a lot of stuff, I think we ended up making $300 each? But it was H-O-T. And it took a lot of work to get everything organized and priced. By the time it was over, and I had dealt with my fair share of hagglers, I vowed never to have another garage sale again. Next time I'm leaving it all at Goodwill.

Just when we were closing up and about to head home, a van pulled up and a guy got out with the most gorgeous bouquet of flowers I had ever seen. He started walking towards us, and of course I thought he had the wrong house. Nobody has lived there since we moved out last November.

He asked if anyone was "Andrea!" HUH?? What is this random bouquet that came to the old house at the exact right moment? I read the card, and it was from my colleague who supervises that horrible account. It was a thank you for all of my hard work. Just because. I thought it was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me, and I enjoyed every second those beautiful flowers graced my dining room table.

Later, I found out that she had sent it to my old house by accident, she got the address from my boss in Memphis. How crazy is it that I happened to be there that day??

Mal's Bachelorette- "Glitter"

July 16 was Mallory's bachelorette party. Chelsea was Mal's only bridesmaid that lives in OK, so she planned it.

We met at Mallory's house for pre-drinking and to get ready. Chelsea bought huge bags of glitter for everyone to "throw in the air" during the night out. We started with dinner at Nonna's, which took forever. I don't know why, but it took them an hour to get our food out and there weren't that many girls. We had bachelorette "dare to do" cards, and some of the girls got started early by torturing our waiter. He grinned and beared it, we left him a nice tip.

We didn't really have a plan for what to do after dinner, but Chelsea wanted to go to Kamp's Deli to see her friends play in a band, so we went. The highlight was getting yelled at 3 times for throwing glitter around and creating a huge mess everywhere we went. Mallory wanted to leave about an hour after we got there, so we left Chelsea there and went to a club/hookah bar. We closed it down and then took a cab home. I'm sure the cab driver was thrilled with the glitter we left in her backseat.

The gorgeous bachelorette










One of Mal's dare cards...get a guy to buy you a shot.


Lots of glitter!!!